


Be the seer. Look into the void.

by Iambic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Post-Scratch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're good at seeing what isn't there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be the seer. Look into the void.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DosMoretes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DosMoretes/gifts).



As Janey's busy getting her shit together you take the opportunity to look outside your house to the world beyond. It's all trees and dirt and nature stuff like that, not really your bag, but -- familiar. And you've got this weird feeling like you're not gonna see it again.

You finger the glass you placed conveniently on the windowsill, still containing at least a few more gulps of vodka and grenadine, objectively the best drink ever (though maybe next time you'll go easier on the grenadine). You'll never tell Jane or Jake, but you're kind of a cheap date. Your mother probably never notices your drinking because she never looks in the alcohol cabinet, but if she did she probably wouldn't notice it anyway because you really don't drink a lot of it. (You're pretty consistent, though. Maybe she'd catch on eventually.) Jane asked you to sober up but what she doesn't know won't hurt her, right? Strider wouldn't tell.

Besides, anyone who knew what you do would want to drink today of all days.

You pull out the Spacetech phone -- you love Jane dearly but her company is _evil_ , you refuse to mindlessly connect to their huge freaky servers -- at the vibration pulse, and turn away from the window to check Pesterchum. Your three partners in doom are all off somewhere else; the active window is that UU again.

uraniumUmbra (UU) began cheering tg (TG) at 12:09

UU: are yoU prepared for the moment of trUth?  
TG: uuuuuuuhg will you jsut drop the act already  
TG: or like tell me what sgona happen the supense is killing me  
TG: with bordom i mean  
TG: *bordeom  
TG: screw it  
UU: bUt yoU know what will happen! we have been planning for this moment the entire time we have been in commUnication.  
TG: more like youve been danglig it in front of me like a kid wth a peice of candy  
TG: look what IVE got  
TG: i just haev the stupid visions they dont ever say anything uesuful  
UU: maybe yoU are jUst listening in the wrong manner.  
UU: bUt as always i am here to help. maybe i can interpret them for yoU.  
TG: maybe you can fuck off huh think of that  
TG: i dont need your help to figrueo ut some freaky visions full of hroseshi  
TG: *horseshit  
UU: if yoU feel that way i will not try to convince yoU otherwise. bUt my offer is still there, if yoU were to change yoUr mind.  
TG: ur FACE is still there  
UU: enjoy yoUr introdUction to the game.

uraniumUmbra (UU) ceased cheering tipsyGnostalgic (TG)

Fucking trolls. You close your phone.

There's nothing doing about making Jane get on with anything; you know exactly when she'll manage to get her game running, and it'll be none too fucking soon. You down the rest of the glass and consider another, but nah, you've got a while to wait, might as well draw it out. Besides, you'll probably want it for next time UU tries to talk at you again.

The others all like them well enough, but you see right through the pleasant facade. Maybe that's why UU talks to you so much. You've always been good at seeing through bullshit.

  


  
tipsyGnostalgic (TG) began pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG) at 12:20

TG: janey  
TG: jaen  
TG: jane  
TG: whenre you gonan start th egame  
TG: janey i kmow you can read this  
TG: jus ttell ur dad to run the gmae  
TG: also to take of his shirt

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG)

  
tipsyGnostalgic (TG) began pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG) at 12:27

TG: ugh jnaey i know youre not rly dead you can stop freiakang htem ou any tim now  
TG: *freakng  
TG: ugh thi swas such a bad iadae

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG)

  
Something about drinking makes it easier not to have to see behind everything. The walls of what you're told and what you know get pleasantly firm and fuzzy a few shots in, and the shadows don't look so much like they're gonna eat you whole. Your mom keeps a creepy house, antique furniture and dusty tomes of forbidden knowledge all over the place, spiderwebs in picturesque corners, almost like she's planning it. And then there are the wizards, arranged in suitably tragic poses. If by suitably you mean suited to her trashy wizard romance novels, which you don't read because ew and also ew. When you're drunk it's easy to laugh it all off as your mom spending too much time alone with her fantasies, but when you're sober... you keep reading into it.

Fuck if you want to know what her actual motives are.

Everything's just so fake when you think about it. Your mother -- adopted you as a young and unclaimed child in the wilderness somewhere, the conceit of this game you're about to play. Your friends -- manipulated into each other's lives, with no reason to seek each other out otherwise. Your entire existence -- just a preparation for a eternal game you'll serve to perpetuate.

(yoU are the seer of void, they said, it is Up to yoU to see what isn't there at all.)

You dump another half-shot into your latest pink disaster and then stagger up the stairs which tilt menacingly at you. Fuck. Maybe you should give it a rest for a while after all. You manage to spill about a fifth of it when you skid on the smooth wood of the hallway, and a fair bit more when you put the glass down on your desk. Okay, definitely taking a break. Jane's finally responding, anyway.

gutsyGumshoe (GG) began pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG) at 13:02

GG: Your concern is so touching!  
TG: shit janey wjksht the jehell werey ou doing ehtehr  
TG: *what  
GG: I think I'm dead.  
TG: well no shityou g ot blasldted up  
TG: gooodt thifnfg th mechnancs of he game donrt alow for yout odie yet  
GG: Have you been drinking solidly this entire afternoon?  
TG: yeah p mcuh  
TG: your bff 4evas dies wahtre you gonna do huh  
TG: liek fuckn o im gona wait this shit ou sbosber yyyyyyup  
TG: wahtevs just sintsall he game  
GG: This isn't that easy you know! I've got to use Li'l Seb as middleman.  
GG: Wait.  
GG: Didn't I only just tell you I was dead?  
TG: oh loeok att he tiem  
TG: gotaa go improt your ass to the meidum  
TG: *medium  
TG: hpoe you cleaenred some space

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG)

  
Your mom is way too into that creepy doom and darkness crap, and you can tell when she's quoting one of her freaky books because she gets this smug look on her face like she knows you're not gonna get whatever she's about to spout. The joke's on her because you sparknoted the shit out of a bunch of her books and now you know for sure that Lovecraft isn't worth your time.

She also gets way too into that psychology stuff, but she did get a degree in it so that's a little more forgivable.

She likes repeating that line about when you gaze into the void the void also gazes into you. She says it means that you can't observe something without changing it.

(You think that's bullshit. You've been observing this stupid game your whole life and it just keeps being the same.)

When you connect to Jane's game and open up the view of her house, you get a pretty good look at the void. All around her, sickening suburbia, the same house over and over again. The same people living the same lives. Empty shells in empty places, existing purely to provide a context for the game about to be played. You think maybe you're glad you never lived around other people before, if they're all like this.

Jane's home itself is by comparison far too full. Not of stuff, everything is full of stuff, but of details. The photography on the walls, conflicting themes and interests. The mangled stuffed grandfather in the living room (Jane wasn't kidding, huh). Mess in the kitchen, clutter in the office, the mark of Janey all over her room. The hole in the wall, the blast marks out front. No sign of Jane (unsurprising) or her dad (pretty weird). Bu he at least could be in the one room in the house obscured from view.

Jane's nowhere to be seen but the bunnybot is running her computer, presumably still at her behest. You leave them to it and set about deploying all the random shit the game demands -- a few rooftop expansions later you're in business.

  
tipsyGnostalgic (TG) began pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG) at 13:09

TG: hope oyu lie kstairs  
TG: im makign you soem

gutsyGumshoe (GG) became an idle chum!

  


gutsyGumshoe (GG) has returned from being idle!

GG: Well that was downright kooky!  
TG: arey ou still dead  
GG: Let me check.  
GG: Yep, still completely transparent!  
TG: just wodnering  
GG: But how did you know I was dead in the first place?  
TG: um

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG)

  
tt (TT) began pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG) at 13:13

TT: I hope you've secured your highball glass firmly to your fist.  
TT: Not to quote my bro or anything, but we're throwing down now.  
TT: We're... making it happen.  
TG: damn boy i can atcualy hear yoru facial epxresosin  
TG: *experssion  
TG: well then get ur strcutural improvemnts on  
TG: im waaaaaaaiiitttiiiiiinnnggg

tt (TT) ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG)

  
You don't have to look outside to see destruction zooming toward you from the sky. It's the looming emptiness all around you. The shadows are howling. Your mom's probably pissing herself in ecstasy -- she better enjoy it while it lasts. And Strider better hurry his perky ass up and tell you where he hid the totem lake or whatever it's called because you've got about two minutes to lights out here, _asshole_.

He's always friendly with you and you know he's got your back, but he's not really talking to you that much these days anyway. Whenever it's actually him, he's pretty... short with you, maybe? He has a lot to say but he never ever says it. Just lets you run your mouth and then makes some terrible comparison and gives you even worse advice you never ask for and then vamooses. Ever since the game started looming. Well, none of your friends really liked your doom predictions, but what the hell were you supposed to do? Not warn them? You caught on after a while; you've been keeping most of what you know to yourself.

Yeah, that's worked out great for you.

And now your phone's buzzing again, probably Jane this time, because you pretty much bailed on her when she called you on your inability to keep to one story, and what the fuck are you going to tell her? It wouldn't have worked either way. She had to die, just like Jake has to live, Strider has to be a douche who's always right, and you have to keep all these shitty things to yourself because you're only allowed to know. In exchange for knowledge, you give up free will. Because this is totally the worst game ever.

There's nothing you can do about it. You answer Jane instead.

gutsyGumshoe (GG) began pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG) at 13:15

GG: So when were you planning on spilling the beans, Lalonde?  
TG: on the liek frist day of not ina million years  
TG: janey im kinda busy rihgt now  
GG: You knew I was going to die and you didn't say anything!  
TG: well youre gonna get better  
TG: yeah hey jane youre shceduled to buy the farm in like three months becuas of some stupid game  
TG: but dont worry youll get beter  
TG: you totes belive me right  
TG: *believe  
GG: All right, I'd be a tad skeptical about it.  
GG: But you could have at least tried!  
TG: it doesnt matter you stil wouldve played th estupid game  
TG: shed of made sure  
TG: anyway im kinda bout to get blown up and we dont need that to keep hapepning  
TG: gotta run

tipsyGnostalgic (TG) ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe (GG)

  


  
When the lights come back on in your brain and the game settles into place all around you, you look out into the shadows of your residence and they are full. You look to the window and outside outside is empty, virtual space full of gaming abstractions. Up in the sky, little dots of existence in the vast void, and you recognise your place in all this. (Nothing. Duh.) You glance to your phone, where Jane has sent you one more message.

gutsyGumshoe (GG) began pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG) at 13:20

GG: Sometimes, Lalonde, I think none of us really know you at all.  
GG: I guess it's pretty unfair for you to expect me to trust you when you won't even trust me!  
GG: I'll catch you later.

gutsyGumshoe (GG) ceased pestering tipsyGnostalgic (TG)


End file.
